As this had been more or less the course of events every night since the

season's lambing had set in, the boy was not at all surprised at the

charge, and amused himself for some time by lighting straws at the stove.

He then went out to the ewes and new-born lambs, re-entered, sat down,

and finally fell asleep. This was his customary manner of performing his

watch, for though special permission for naps had this week been

accorded, he had, as a matter of fact, done the same thing on every

preceding night, sleeping often till awakened by a smack on the shoulder

at three or four in the morning from the crook-stem of the old man.

It might have been about eleven o'clock when he awoke. He was so

surprised at awaking without, apparently, being called or struck, that on

second thoughts he assumed that somebody must have called him in spite of

appearances, and looked out of the hut window towards the sheep. They

all lay as quiet as when he had visited them, very little bleating being

audible, and no human soul disturbing the scene. He next looked from the

opposite window, and here the case was different. The frost-facets

glistened under the moon as before; an occasional furze bush showed as a

dark spot on the same; and in the foreground stood the ghostly form of

the trilithon. But in front of the trilithon stood a man.

That he was not the shepherd or any one of the farm labourers was

apparent in a moment's observation,--his dress being a dark suit, and his

figure of slender build and graceful carriage. He walked backwards and

forwards in front of the trilithon.

The shepherd lad had hardly done speculating on the strangeness of the

unknown's presence here at such an hour, when he saw a second figure

crossing the open sward towards the locality of the trilithon and furze-

clump that screened the hut. This second personage was a woman; and

immediately on sight of her the male stranger hastened forward, meeting

her just in front of the hut window. Before she seemed to be aware of

his intention he clasped her in his arms.

The lady released herself and drew back with some dignity.

'You have come, Harriet--bless you for it!' he exclaimed, fervently.

'But not for this,' she answered, in offended accents. And then, more

good-naturedly, 'I have come, Fred, because you entreated me so! What

can have been the object of your writing such a letter? I feared I might

be doing you grievous ill by staying away. How did you come here?'

'I walked all the way from my father's.'

'Well, what is it? How have you lived since we last met?'

'But roughly; you might have known that without asking. I have seen many

lands and many faces since I last walked these downs, but I have only

thought of you.'

'Is it only to tell me this that you have summoned me so strangely?'

A passing breeze blew away the murmur of the reply and several succeeding

sentences, till the man's voice again became audible in the words,

'Harriet--truth between us two! I have heard that the Duke does not

treat you too well.'

'He is warm-tempered, but he is a good husband.'

'He speaks roughly to you, and sometimes even threatens to lock you out

of doors.'

'Only once, Fred! On my honour, only once. The Duke is a fairly good

husband, I repeat. But you deserve punishment for this night's trick of

drawing me out. What does it mean?'

'Harriet, dearest, is this fair or honest? Is it not notorious that your

life with him is a sad one--that, in spite of the sweetness of your

temper, the sourness of his embitters your days. I have come to know if

I can help you. You are a Duchess, and I am Fred Ogbourne; but it is not

impossible that I may be able to help you . . . By God! the sweetness of

that tongue ought to keep him civil, especially when there is added to it

the sweetness of that face!'

'Captain Ogbourne!' she exclaimed, with an emphasis of playful fear. 'How

can such a comrade of my youth behave to me as you do? Don't speak so,

and stare at me so! Is this really all you have to say? I see I ought

not to have come. 'Twas thoughtlessly done.'

Another breeze broke the thread of discourse for a time.

'Very well. I perceive you are dead and lost to me,' he could next be

heard to say, '"Captain Ogbourne" proves that. As I once loved you I

love you now, Harriet, without one jot of abatement; but you are not the

woman you were--you once were honest towards me; and now you conceal your

heart in made-up speeches. Let it be: I can never see you again.'

'You need not say that in such a tragedy tone, you silly. You may see me

in an ordinary way--why should you not? But, of course, not in such a

way as this. I should not have come now, if it had not happened that the

Duke is away from home, so that there is nobody to check my erratic

impulses.'

'When does he return?'

'The day after to-morrow, or the day after that.'

'Then meet me again to-morrow night.'

'No, Fred, I cannot.'

'If you cannot to-morrow night, you can the night after; one of the two

before he comes please bestow on me. Now, your hand upon it! To-morrow

or next night you will see me to bid me farewell!' He seized the

Duchess's hand.

'No, but Fred--let go my hand! What do you mean by holding me so? If it

be love to forget all respect to a woman's present position in thinking

of her past, then yours may be so, Frederick. It is not kind and gentle

of you to induce me to come to this place for pity of you, and then to

hold me tight here.'

'But see me once more! I have come two thousand miles to ask it.'

'O, I must not! There will be slanders--Heaven knows what! I cannot

meet you. For the sake of old times don't ask it.'

'Then own two things to me; that you did love me once, and that your

husband is unkind to you often enough now to make you think of the time

when you cared for me.'

'Yes--I own them both,' she answered faintly. 'But owning such as that

tells against me; and I swear the inference is not true.'

'Don't say that; for you have come--let me think the reason of your

coming what I like to think it. It can do you no harm. Come once more!'

He still held her hand and waist. 'Very well, then,' she said. 'Thus

far you shall persuade me. I will meet you to-morrow night or the night

after. Now, let me go.'

He released her, and they parted. The Duchess ran rapidly down the hill

towards the outlying mansion of Shakeforest Towers, and when he had

watched her out of sight, he turned and strode off in the opposite

direction. All then was silent and empty as before.

Yet it was only for a moment. When they had quite departed, another

shape appeared upon the scene. He came from behind the trilithon. He

was a man of stouter build than the first, and wore the boots and spurs

of a horseman. Two things were at once obvious from this phenomenon:

that he had watched the interview between the Captain and the Duchess;

and that, though he probably had seen every movement of the couple,

including the embrace, he had been too remote to hear the reluctant words

of the lady's conversation--or, indeed, any words at all--so that the

meeting must have exhibited itself to his eye as the assignation of a

pair of well-agreed lovers. But it was necessary that several years

should elapse before the shepherd-boy was old enough to reason out this.

The third individual stood still for a moment, as if deep in meditation.

He crossed over to where the lady and gentleman had stood, and looked at

the ground; then he too turned and went away in a third direction, as

widely divergent as possible from those taken by the two interlocutors.

His course was towards the highway; and a few minutes afterwards the trot

of a horse might have been heard upon its frosty surface, lessening till

it died away upon the ear.

The boy remained in the hut, confronting the trilithon as if he expected

yet more actors on the scene, but nobody else appeared. How long he

stood with his little face against the loophole he hardly knew; but he

was rudely awakened from his reverie by a punch in his back, and in the

feel of it he familiarly recognized the stem of the old shepherd's crook.

'Blame thy young eyes and limbs, Bill Mills--now you have let the fire

out, and you know I want it kept in! I thought something would go wrong

with 'ee up here, and I couldn't bide in bed no more than thistledown on

the wind, that I could not! Well, what's happened, fie upon 'ee?'

'Nothing.'

'Ewes all as I left 'em?'

'Yes.'

'Any lambs want bringing in?'

'No.'

The shepherd relit the fire, and went out among the sheep with a lantern,

for the moon was getting low. Soon he came in again.

'Blame it all--thou'st say that nothing have happened; when one ewe have

twinned and is like to go off, and another is dying for want of half an

eye of looking to! I told 'ee, Bill Mills, if anything went wrong to

come down and call me; and this is how you have done it.'

'You said I could go to sleep for a hollerday, and I did.'

'Don't you speak to your betters like that, young man, or you'll come to

the gallows-tree! You didn't sleep all the time, or you wouldn't have

been peeping out of that there hole! Now you can go home, and be up here

again by breakfast-time. I be an old man, and there's old men that

deserve well of the world; but no I--must rest how I can!'

The elder shepherd then lay down inside the hut, and the boy went down

the hill to the hamlet where he dwelt.

SECOND NIGHT

When the next night drew on the actions of the boy were almost enough to

show that he was thinking of the meeting he had witnessed, and of the

promise wrung from the lady that she would come there again. As far as

the sheep-tending arrangements were concerned, to-night was but a

repetition of the foregoing one. Between ten and eleven o'clock the old

shepherd withdrew as usual for what sleep at home he might chance to get

without interruption, making up the other necessary hours of rest at some

time during the day; the boy was left alone.

The frost was the same as on the night before, except perhaps that it was

a little more severe. The moon shone as usual, except that it was three-

quarters of an hour later in its course; and the boy's condition was much

the same, except that he felt no sleepiness whatever. He felt, too,

rather afraid; but upon the whole he preferred witnessing an assignation

of strangers to running the risk of being discovered absent by the old

shepherd.

It was before the distant clock of Shakeforest Towers had struck eleven

that he observed the opening of the second act of this midnight drama. It

consisted in the appearance of neither lover nor Duchess, but of the

third figure--the stout man, booted and spurred--who came up from the

easterly direction in which he had retreated the night before. He walked

once round the trilithon, and next advanced towards the clump concealing

the hut, the moonlight shining full upon his face and revealing him to be

the Duke. Fear seized upon the shepherd-boy: the Duke was Jove himself

to the rural population, whom to offend was starvation, homelessness, and

death, and whom to look at was to be mentally scathed and dumbfoundered.

He closed the stove, so that not a spark of light appeared, and hastily

buried himself in the straw that lay in a corner.

The Duke came close to the clump of furze and stood by the spot where his

wife and the Captain had held their dialogue; he examined the furze as if

searching for a hiding-place, and in doing so discovered the hut. The

latter he walked round and then looked inside; finding it to all seeming

empty, he entered, closing the door behind him and taking his place at

the little circular window against which the boy's face had been pressed

just before.

The Duke had not adopted his measures too rapidly, if his object were

concealment. Almost as soon as he had stationed himself there eleven

o'clock struck, and the slender young man who had previously graced the

scene promptly reappeared from the north quarter of the down. The spot

of assignation having, by the accident of his running forward on the

foregoing night, removed itself from the Devil's Door to the clump of

furze, he instinctively came thither, and waited for the Duchess where he

had met her before.

But a fearful surprise was in store for him to-night, as well as for the

trembling juvenile. At his appearance the Duke breathed more and more

quickly, his breathings being distinctly audible to the crouching boy.

The young man had hardly paused when the alert nobleman softly opened the

door of the hut, and, stepping round the furze, came full upon Captain

Fred.

'You have dishonoured her, and you shall die the death you deserve!' came

to the shepherd's ears, in a harsh, hollow whisper through the boarding

of the hut.

The apathetic and taciturn boy was excited enough to run the risk of

rising and looking from the window, but he could see nothing for the

intervening furze boughs, both the men having gone round to the side.

What took place in the few following moments he never exactly knew. He

discerned portion of a shadow in quick muscular movement; then there was

the fall of something on the grass; then there was stillness.

Two or three minutes later the Duke became visible round the corner of

the hut, dragging by the collar the now inert body of the second man. The

Duke dragged him across the open space towards the trilithon. Behind

this ruin was a hollow, irregular spot, overgrown with furze and stunted

thorns, and riddled by the old holes of badgers, its former inhabitants,

who had now died out or departed. The Duke vanished into this depression

with his burden, reappearing after the lapse of a few seconds. When he

came forth he dragged nothing behind him.

He returned to the side of the hut, cleansed something on the grass, and

again put himself on the watch, though not as before, inside the hut, but

without, on the shady side. 'Now for the second!' he said.

It was plain, even to the unsophisticated boy, that he now awaited the

other person of the appointment--his wife, the Duchess--for what purpose

it was terrible to think. He seemed to be a man of such determined

temper that he would scarcely hesitate in carrying out a course of

revenge to the bitter end. Moreover--though it was what the shepherd did

not perceive--this was all the more probable, in that the moody Duke was

labouring under the exaggerated impression which the sight of the meeting

in dumb show had conveyed.

The jealous watcher waited long, but he waited in vain. From within the

hut the boy could hear his occasional exclamations of surprise, as if he

were almost disappointed at the failure of his assumption that his guilty

Duchess would surely keep the tryst. Sometimes he stepped from the shade

of the furze into the moonlight, and held up his watch to learn the time.

About half-past eleven he seemed to give up expecting her. He then went

a second time to the hollow behind the trilithon, remaining there nearly

a quarter of an hour. From this place he proceeded quickly over a

shoulder of the declivity, a little to the left, presently returning on

horseback, which proved that his horse had been tethered in some secret

place down there. Crossing anew the down between the hut and the

trilithon, and scanning the precincts as if finally to assure himself

that she had not come, he rode slowly downwards in the direction of

Shakeforest Towers.

The juvenile shepherd thought of what lay in the hollow yonder; and no

fear of the crook-stem of his superior officer was potent enough to

detain him longer on that hill alone. Any live company, even the most

terrible, was better than the company of the dead; so, running with the

speed of a hare in the direction pursued by the horseman, he overtook the

revengeful Duke at the second descent (where the great western road

crossed before you came to the old park entrance on that side--now closed

up and the lodge cleared away, though at the time it was wondered why,

being considered the most convenient gate of all).

Once within the sound of the horse's footsteps, Bill Mills felt

comparatively comfortable; for, though in awe of the Duke because of his

position, he had no moral repugnance to his companionship on account of

the grisly deed he had committed, considering that powerful nobleman to

have a right to do what he chose on his own lands. The Duke rode

steadily on beneath his ancestral trees, the hoofs of his horse sending

up a smart sound now that he had reached the hard road of the drive, and

soon drew near the front door of his house, surmounted by parapets with

square-cut battlements that cast a notched shade upon the gravelled

terrace. These outlines were quite familiar to little Bill Mills, though

nothing within their boundary had ever been seen by him.

When the rider approached the mansion a small turret door was quickly

opened and a woman came out. As soon as she saw the horseman's outlines

she ran forward into the moonlight to meet him.

'Ah dear--and are you come?' she said. 'I heard Hero's tread just when

you rode over the hill, and I knew it in a moment. I would have come

further if I had been aware--'

'Glad to see me, eh?'

'How can you ask that?'

'Well; it is a lovely night for meetings.'

'Yes, it is a lovely night.'

The Duke dismounted and stood by her side. 'Why should you have been

listening at this time of night, and yet not expecting me?' he asked.

'Why, indeed! There is a strange story attached to that, which I must

tell you at once. But why did you come a night sooner than you said you

would come? I am rather sorry--I really am!' (shaking her head

playfully) 'for as a surprise to you I had ordered a bonfire to be built,

which was to be lighted on your arrival to-morrow; and now it is wasted.

You can see the outline of it just out there.'

The Duke looked across to a spot of rising glade, and saw the faggots in

a heap. He then bent his eyes with a bland and puzzled air on the

ground, 'What is this strange story you have to tell me that kept you

awake?' he murmured.

'It is this--and it is really rather serious. My cousin Fred

Ogbourne--Captain Ogbourne as he is now--was in his boyhood a great

admirer of mine, as I think I have told you, though I was six years his

senior. In strict truth, he was absurdly fond of me.'

'You have never told me of that before.'

'Then it was your sister I told--yes, it was. Well, you know I have not

seen him for many years, and naturally I had quite forgotten his

admiration of me in old times. But guess my surprise when the day before

yesterday, I received a mysterious note bearing no address, and found on

opening it that it came from him. The contents frightened me out of my

wits. He had returned from Canada to his father's house, and conjured me

by all he could think of to meet him at once. But I think I can repeat

the exact words, though I will show it to you when we get indoors.

"MY DEAR COUSIN HARRIET," the note said, "After this long absence you

will be surprised at my sudden reappearance, and more by what I am

going to ask. But if my life and future are of any concern to you at

all, I beg that you will grant my request. What I require of you, is,

dear Harriet, that you meet me about eleven to-night by the Druid

stones on Marlbury Downs, about a mile or more from your house. I

cannot say more, except to entreat you to come. I will explain all

when you are there. The one thing is, I want to see you. Come alone.

Believe me, I would not ask this if my happiness did not hang upon

it--God knows how entirely! I am too agitated to say more--Yours.

FRED."

'That was all of it. Now, of course I ought have gone, as it turned out,

but that I did not think of then. I remembered his impetuous temper, and

feared that something grievous was impending over his head, while he had

not a friend in the world to help him, or any one except myself to whom

he would care to make his trouble known. So I wrapped myself up and went

to Marlbury Downs at the time he had named. Don't you think I was

courageous?'

'Very.'

'When I got there--but shall we not walk on; it is getting cold?' The

Duke, however, did not move. 'When I got there he came, of course, as a

full grown man and officer, and not as the lad that I had known him. When

I saw him I was sorry I had come. I can hardly tell you how he behaved.

What he wanted I don't know even now; it seemed to be no more than the

mere meeting with me. He held me by the hand and waist--O so tight--and

would not let me go till I had promised to meet him again. His manner

was so strange and passionate that I was afraid of him in such a lonely

place, and I promised to come. Then I escaped--then I ran home--and

that's all. When the time drew on this evening for the

appointment--which, of course, I never intended to keep, I felt uneasy,

lest when he found I meant to disappoint him he would come on to the

house; and that's why I could not sleep. But you are so silent!'

'I have had a long journey.'

'Then let us get into the house. Why did you come alone and unattended

like this?'

'It was my humour.'

After a moment's silence, during which they moved on, she said, 'I have

thought of something which I hardly like to suggest to you. He said that

if I failed to come to-night he would wait again to-morrow night. Now,

shall we to-morrow night go to the hill together--just to see if he is

there; and if he is, read him a lesson on his foolishness in nourishing

this old passion, and sending for me so oddly, instead of coming to the

house?'

'Why should we see if he's there?' said her husband moodily.

'Because I think we ought to do something in it. Poor Fred! He would

listen to you if you reasoned with him, and set our positions in their

true light before him. It would be no more than Christian kindness to a

man who unquestionably is very miserable from some cause or other. His

head seems quite turned.'

By this time they had reached the door, rung the bell, and waited. All

the house seemed to be asleep; but soon a man came to them, the horse was

taken away, and the Duke and Duchess went in.

THIRD NIGHT

There was no help for it. Bill Mills was obliged to stay on duty, in the

old shepherd's absence, this evening as before, or give up his post and

living. He thought as bravely as he could of what lay behind the Devil's

Door, but with no great success, and was therefore in a measure relieved,

even if awe-stricken, when he saw the forms of the Duke and Duchess

strolling across the frosted greensward. The Duchess was a few yards in

front of her husband and tripped on lightly.

'I tell you he has not thought it worth while to come again!' the Duke

insisted, as he stood still, reluctant to walk further.

'He is more likely to come and wait all night; and it would be harsh

treatment to let him do it a second time.'

'He is not here; so turn and come home.'

'He seems not to be here, certainly; I wonder if anything has happened to

him. If it has, I shall never forgive myself!'

The Duke, uneasily, 'O, no. He has some other engagement.'

'That is very unlikely.'

'Or perhaps he has found the distance too far.'

'Nor is that probable.'

'Then he may have thought better of it.'

'Yes, he may have thought better of it; if, indeed, he is not here all

the time--somewhere in the hollow behind the Devil's Door. Let us go and

see; it will serve him right to surprise him.'

'O, he's not there.'

'He may be lying very quiet because of you,' she said archly.

'O, no--not because of me!'

'Come, then. I declare, dearest, you lag like an unwilling schoolboy to-

night, and there's no responsiveness in you! You are jealous of that

poor lad, and it is quite absurd of you.'

'I'll come! I'll come! Say no more, Harriet!' And they crossed over

the green.

Wondering what they would do, the young shepherd left the hut, and

doubled behind the belt of furze, intending to stand near the trilithon

unperceived. But, in crossing the few yards of open ground he was for a

moment exposed to view.

'Ah, I see him at last!' said the Duchess.

'See him!' said the Duke. 'Where?'

'By the Devil's Door; don't you notice a figure there? Ah, my poor lover-

cousin, won't you catch it now?' And she laughed half-pityingly. 'But

what's the matter?' she asked, turning to her husband.

'It is not he!' said the Duke hoarsely. 'It can't be he!'

'No, it is not he. It is too small for him. It is a boy.'

'Ah, I thought so! Boy, come here.'

The youthful shepherd advanced with apprehension.

'What are you doing here?'

'Keeping sheep, your Grace.'

'Ah, you know me! Do you keep sheep here every night?'

'Off and on, my Lord Duke.'

'And what have you seen here to-night or last night?' inquired the

Duchess. 'Any person waiting or walking about?'

The boy was silent.

'He has seen nothing,' interrupted her husband, his eyes so forbiddingly

fixed on the boy that they seemed to shine like points of fire. 'Come,

let us go. The air is too keen to stand in long.'

When they were gone the boy retreated to the hut and sheep, less fearful

now than at first--familiarity with the situation having gradually

overpowered his thoughts of the buried man. But he was not to be left

alone long. When an interval had elapsed of about sufficient length for

walking to and from Shakeforest Towers, there appeared from that

direction the heavy form of the Duke. He now came alone.

The nobleman, on his part, seemed to have eyes no less sharp than the

boy's, for he instantly recognized the latter among the ewes, and came

straight towards him.

'Are you the shepherd lad I spoke to a short time ago?'

'I be, my Lord Duke.'

'Now listen to me. Her Grace asked you what you had seen this last night

or two up here, and you made no reply. I now ask the same thing, and you

need not be afraid to answer. Have you seen anything strange these

nights you have been watching here?'

'My Lord Duke, I be a poor heedless boy, and what I see I don't bear in

mind.'

'I ask you again,' said the Duke, coming nearer, 'have you seen anything

strange these nights you have been watching here?'

'O, my Lord Duke! I be but the under-shepherd boy, and my father he was

but your humble Grace's hedger, and my mother only the cinder-woman in

the back-yard! I fall asleep when left alone, and I see nothing at all!'

The Duke grasped the boy by the shoulder, and, directly impending over

him, stared down into his face, 'Did you see anything strange done here

last night, I say?'

'O, my Lord Duke, have mercy, and don't stab me!' cried the shepherd,

falling on his knees. 'I have never seen you walking here, or riding

here, or lying-in-wait for a man, or dragging a heavy load!'

'H'm!' said his interrogator, grimly, relaxing his hold. 'It is well to

know that you have never seen those things. Now, which would you

rather--see me do those things now, or keep a secret all your life?'

'Keep a secret, my Lord Duke!'

'Sure you are able?'

'O, your Grace, try me!'

'Very well. And now, how do you like sheep-keeping?'

'Not at all. 'Tis lonely work for them that think of spirits, and I'm

badly used.'

'I believe you. You are too young for it. I must do something to make

you more comfortable. You shall change this smock-frock for a real cloth

jacket, and your thick boots for polished shoes. And you shall be taught

what you have never yet heard of; and be put to school, and have bats and

balls for the holidays, and be made a man of. But you must never say you

have been a shepherd boy, and watched on the hills at night, for shepherd

boys are not liked in good company.

'Trust me, my Lord Duke.'

'The very moment you forget yourself, and speak of your shepherd

days--this year, next year, in school, out of school, or riding in your

carriage twenty years hence--at that moment my help will be withdrawn,

and smash down you come to shepherding forthwith. You have parents, I

think you say?'

'A widowed mother only, my Lord Duke.'

'I'll provide for her, and make a comfortable woman of her, until you

speak of--what?'

'Of my shepherd days, and what I saw here.'

'Good. If you do speak of it?'

'Smash down she comes to widowing forthwith!'

'That's well--very well. But it's not enough. Come here.' He took the

boy across to the trilithon, and made him kneel down.

'Now, this was once a holy place,' resumed the Duke. 'An altar stood

here, erected to a venerable family of gods, who were known and talked of

long before the God we know now. So that an oath sworn here is doubly an

oath. Say this after me: "May all the host above--angels and archangels,

and principalities and powers--punish me; may I be tormented wherever I

am--in the house or in the garden, in the fields or in the roads, in

church or in chapel, at home or abroad, on land or at sea; may I be

afflicted in eating and in drinking, in growing up and in growing old, in

living and dying, inwardly and outwardly, and for always, if I ever speak

of my life as a shepherd boy, or of what I have seen done on this

Marlbury Down. So be it, and so let it be. Amen and amen." Now kiss

the stone.'

The trembling boy repeated the words, and kissed the stone, as desired.

The Duke led him off by the hand. That night the junior shepherd slept

in Shakeforest Towers, and the next day he was sent away for tuition to a

remote village. Thence he went to a preparatory establishment, and in

due course to a public school.

FOURTH NIGHT

On a winter evening many years subsequent to the above-mentioned

occurrences, the ci-devant shepherd sat in a well-furnished office in the

north wing of Shakeforest Towers in the guise of an ordinary educated man

of business. He appeared at this time as a person of thirty-eight or

forty, though actually he was several years younger. A worn and restless

glance of the eye now and then, when he lifted his head to search for

some letter or paper which had been mislaid, seemed to denote that his

was not a mind so thoroughly at ease as his surroundings might have led

an observer to expect.

His pallor, too, was remarkable for a countryman. He was professedly

engaged in writing, but he shaped not word. He had sat there only a few

minutes, when, laying down his pen and pushing back his chair, he rested

a hand uneasily on each of the chair-arms and looked on the floor.

Soon he arose and left the room. His course was along a passage which

ended in a central octagonal hall; crossing this he knocked at a door. A

faint, though deep, voice told him to come in. The room he entered was

the library, and it was tenanted by a single person only--his patron the

Duke.

During this long interval of years the Duke had lost all his heaviness of

build. He was, indeed, almost a skeleton; his white hair was thin, and

his hands were nearly transparent. 'Oh--Mills?' he murmured. 'Sit down.

What is it?'

'Nothing new, your Grace. Nobody to speak of has written, and nobody has

called.'

'Ah--what then? You look concerned.'

'Old times have come to life, owing to something waking them.'

'Old times be cursed--which old times are they?'

'That Christmas week twenty-two years ago, when the late Duchess's cousin

Frederick implored her to meet him on Marlbury Downs. I saw the

meeting--it was just such a night as this--and I, as you know, saw more.

She met him once, but not the second time.'

'Mills, shall I recall some words to you--the words of an oath taken on

that hill by a shepherd-boy?'

'It is unnecessary. He has strenuously kept that oath and promise. Since

that night no sound of his shepherd life has crossed his lips--even to

yourself. But do you wish to hear more, or do you not, your Grace?'

'I wish to hear no more,' said the Duke sullenly.

'Very well; let it be so. But a time seems coming--may be quite near at

hand--when, in spite of my lips, that episode will allow itself to go

undivulged no longer.'

'I wish to hear no more!' repeated the Duke.

'You need be under no fear of treachery from me,' said the steward,

somewhat bitterly. 'I am a man to whom you have been kind--no patron

could have been kinder. You have clothed and educated me; have installed

me here; and I am not unmindful. But what of it--has your Grace gained

much by my stanchness? I think not. There was great excitement about

Captain Ogbourne's disappearance, but I spoke not a word. And his body

has never been found. For twenty-two years I have wondered what you did

with him. Now I know. A circumstance that occurred this afternoon

recalled the time to me most forcibly. To make it certain to myself that

all was not a dream, I went up there with a spade; I searched, and saw

enough to know that something decays there in a closed badger's hole.'

'Mills, do you think the Duchess guessed?'

'She never did, I am sure, to the day of her death.'

'Did you leave all as you found it on the hill?'

'I did.'

'What made you think of going up there this particular afternoon?'

'What your Grace says you don't wish to be told.'

The Duke was silent; and the stillness of the evening was so marked that

there reached their ears from the outer air the sound of a tolling bell.

'What is that bell tolling for?' asked the nobleman.

'For what I came to tell you of, your Grace.'

'You torment me it is your way!' said the Duke querulously. 'Who's dead

in the village?'

'The oldest man--the old shepherd.'

'Dead at last--how old is he?'

'Ninety-four.'

'And I am only seventy. I have four-and-twenty years to the good!'

'I served under that old man when I kept sheep on Marlbury Downs. And he

was on the hill that second night, when I first exchanged words with your

Grace. He was on the hill all the time; but I did not know he was

there--nor did you.'

'Ah!' said the Duke, starting up. 'Go on--I yield the point--you may

tell!'

'I heard this afternoon that he was at the point of death. It was that

which set me thinking of that past time--and induced me to search on the

hill for what I have told you. Coming back I heard that he wished to see

the Vicar to confess to him a secret he had kept for more than twenty

years--"out of respect to my Lord the Duke"--something that he had seen

committed on Marlbury Downs when returning to the flock on a December

night twenty-two years ago. I have thought it over. He had left me in

charge that evening; but he was in the habit of coming back suddenly,

lest I should have fallen asleep. That night I saw nothing of him,

though he had promised to return. He must have returned, and--found

reason to keep in hiding. It is all plain. The next thing is that the

Vicar went to him two hours ago. Further than that I have not heard.'

'It is quite enough. I will see the Vicar at daybreak to-morrow.'

'What to do?'

'Stop his tongue for four-and-twenty years--till I am dead at

ninety-four, like the shepherd.'

'Your Grace--while you impose silence on me, I will not speak, even

though nay neck should pay the penalty. I promised to be yours, and I am

yours. But is this persistence of any avail?'

'I'll stop his tongue, I say!' cried the Duke with some of his old rugged

force. 'Now, you go home to bed, Mills, and leave me to manage him.'

The interview ended, and the steward withdrew. The night, as he had

said, was just such an one as the night of twenty-two years before, and

the events of the evening destroyed in him all regard for the season as

one of cheerfulness and goodwill. He went off to his own house on the

further verge of the park, where he led a lonely life, scarcely calling

any man friend. At eleven he prepared to retire to bed--but did not

retire. He sat down and reflected. Twelve o'clock struck; he looked out

at the colourless moon, and, prompted by he knew not what, put on his hat

and emerged into the air. Here William Mills strolled on and on, till he

reached the top of Marlbury Downs, a spot he had not visited at this hour

of the night during the whole score-and-odd years.

He placed himself, as nearly as he could guess, on the spot where the

shepherd's hut had stood. No lambing was in progress there now, and the

old shepherd who had used him so roughly had ceased from his labours that

very day. But the trilithon stood up white as ever; and, crossing the

intervening sward, the steward fancifully placed his mouth against the

stone. Restless and self-reproachful as he was, he could not resist a

smile as he thought of the terrifying oath of compact, sealed by a kiss

upon the stones of a Pagan temple. But he had kept his word, rather as a

promise than as a formal vow, with much worldly advantage to himself,

though not much happiness; till increase of years had bred reactionary

feelings which led him to receive the news of to-night with emotions akin

to relief.

While leaning against the Devil's Door and thinking on these things, he

became conscious that he was not the only inhabitant of the down. A

figure in white was moving across his front with long, noiseless strides.

Mills stood motionless, and when the form drew quite near he perceived it

to be that of the Duke himself in his nightshirt--apparently walking in

his sleep. Not to alarm the old man, Mills clung close to the shadow of

the stone. The Duke went straight on into the hollow. There he knelt

down, and began scratching the earth with his hands like a badger. After

a few minutes he arose, sighed heavily, and retraced his steps as he had

come.

Fearing that he might harm himself, yet unwilling to arouse him, the

steward followed noiselessly. The Duke kept on his path unerringly,

entered the park, and made for the house, where he let himself in by a

window that stood open--the one probably by which he had come out. Mills

softly closed the window behind his patron, and then retired homeward to

await the revelations of the morning, deeming it unnecessary to alarm the

house.

However, he felt uneasy during the remainder of the night, no less on

account of the Duke's personal condition than because of that which was

imminent next day. Early in the morning he called at Shakeforest Towers.

The blinds were down, and there was something singular upon the porter's

face when he opened the door. The steward inquired for the Duke.

The man's voice was subdued as he replied: 'Sir, I am sorry to say that

his Grace is dead! He left his room some time in the night, and wandered

about nobody knows where. On returning to the upper floor he lost his

balance and fell downstairs.'

The steward told the tale of the Down before the Vicar had spoken. Mills

had always intended to do so after the death of the Duke. The

consequences to himself he underwent cheerfully; but his life was not

prolonged. He died, a farmer at the Cape, when still somewhat under

forty-nine years of age.

The splendid Marlbury breeding flock is as renowned as ever, and, to the

eye, seems the same in every particular that it was in earlier times; but

the animals which composed it on the occasion of the events gathered from

the Justice are divided by many ovine generations from its members now.

Lambing Corner has long since ceased to be used for lambing purposes,

though the name still lingers on as the appellation of the spot. This

abandonment of site may be partly owing to the removal of the high furze

bushes which lent such convenient shelter at that date. Partly, too, it

may be due to another circumstance. For it is said by present shepherds

in that district that during the nights of Christmas week flitting shapes

are seen in the open space around the trilithon, together with the gleam

of a weapon, and the shadow of a man dragging a burden into the hollow.

But of these things there is no certain testimony.

Christmas 1881.

A COMMITTEE-MAN OF 'THE TERROR'

We had been talking of the Georgian glories of our old-fashioned watering-

place, which now, with its substantial russet-red and dun brick buildings

in the style of the year eighteen hundred, looks like one side of a Soho

or Bloomsbury Street transported to the shore, and draws a smile from the

modern tourist who has no eye for solidity of build. The writer, quite a

youth, was present merely as a listener. The conversation proceeded from

general subjects to particular, until old Mrs. H--, whose memory was as

perfect at eighty as it had ever been in her life, interested us all by

the obvious fidelity with which she repeated a story many times related

to her by her mother when our aged friend was a girl--a domestic drama

much affecting the life of an acquaintance of her said parent, one

Mademoiselle V--, a teacher of French. The incidents occurred in the

town during the heyday of its fortunes, at the time of our brief peace

with France in 1802-3.

'I wrote it down in the shape of a story some years ago, just after my

mother's death,' said Mrs. H--. 'It is locked up in my desk there now.'

'Read it!' said we.

'No,' said she; 'the light is bad, and I can remember it well enough,

word for word, flourishes and all.' We could not be choosers in the

circumstances, and she began.

* * * * *

'There are two in it, of course, the man and the woman, and it was on an

evening in September that she first got to know him. There had not been

such a grand gathering on the Esplanade all the season. His Majesty King

George the Third was present, with all the princesses and royal dukes,

while upwards of three hundred of the general nobility and other persons

of distinction were also in the town at the time. Carriages and other

conveyances were arriving every minute from London and elsewhere; and

when among the rest a shabby stage-coach came in by a by-route along the

coast from Havenpool, and drew up at a second-rate tavern, it attracted

comparatively little notice.

'From this dusty vehicle a man alighted, left his small quantity of

luggage temporarily at the office, and walked along the street as if to

look for lodgings.

'He was about forty-five--possibly fifty--and wore a long coat of faded

superfine cloth, with a heavy collar, and a hunched-up neckcloth. He

seemed to desire obscurity.

'But the display appeared presently to strike him, and he asked of a

rustic he met in the street what was going on; his accent being that of

one to whom English pronunciation was difficult.

'The countryman looked at him with a slight surprise, and said, "King

Jarge is here and his royal Cwort."

'The stranger inquired if they were going to stay long.

'"Don't know, Sir. Same as they always do, I suppose."

'"How long is that?"

'"Till some time in October. They've come here every summer since eighty-

nine."

'The stranger moved onward down St. Thomas Street, and approached the

bridge over the harbour backwater, that then, as now, connected the old

town with the more modern portion. The spot was swept with the rays of a

low sun, which lit up the harbour lengthwise, and shone under the brim of

the man's hat and into his eyes as he looked westward. Against the

radiance figures were crossing in the opposite direction to his own;

among them this lady of my mother's later acquaintance, Mademoiselle V--.

She was the daughter of a good old French family, and at that date a pale

woman, twenty-eight or thirty years of age, tall and elegant in figure,

but plainly dressed and wearing that evening (she said) a small muslin

shawl crossed over the bosom in the fashion of the time, and tied behind.

'At sight of his face, which, as she used to tell us, was unusually

distinct in the peering sunlight, she could not help giving a little

shriek of horror, for a terrible reason connected with her history, and

after walking a few steps further, she sank down against the parapet of

the bridge in a fainting fit.

'In his preoccupation the foreign gentleman had hardly noticed her, but

her strange collapse immediately attracted his attention. He quickly

crossed the carriageway, picked her up, and carried her into the first

shop adjoining the bridge, explaining that she was a lady who had been

taken ill outside.

'She soon revived; but, clearly much puzzled, her helper perceived that

she still had a dread of him which was sufficient to hinder her complete

recovery of self-command. She spoke in a quick and nervous way to the

shopkeeper, asking him to call a coach.

'This the shopkeeper did, Mademoiselle V--- and the stranger remaining in

constrained silence while he was gone. The coach came up, and giving the

man the address, she entered it and drove away.

'"Who is that lady?" said the newly arrived gentleman.

'"She's of your nation, as I should make bold to suppose," said the

shopkeeper. And he told the other that she was Mademoiselle V--,

governess at General Newbold's, in the same town.

'"You have many foreigners here?" the stranger inquired.

'"Yes, though mostly Hanoverians. But since the peace they are learning

French a good deal in genteel society, and French instructors are rather

in demand."

'"Yes, I teach it," said the visitor. "I am looking for a tutorship in

an academy."

'The information given by the burgess to the Frenchman seemed to explain

to the latter nothing of his countrywoman's conduct--which, indeed, was

the case--and he left the shop, taking his course again over the bridge

and along the south quay to the Old Rooms Inn, where he engaged a

bedchamber.

'Thoughts of the woman who had betrayed such agitation at sight of him

lingered naturally enough with the newcomer. Though, as I stated, not

much less than thirty years of age, Mademoiselle V--, one of his own

nation, and of highly refined and delicate appearance, had kindled a

singular interest in the middle-aged gentleman's breast, and her large

dark eyes, as they had opened and shrunk from him, exhibited a pathetic

beauty to which hardly any man could have been insensible.

'The next day, having written some letters, he went out and made known at

the office of the town "Guide" and of the newspaper, that a teacher of

French and calligraphy had arrived, leaving a card at the bookseller's to

the same effect. He then walked on aimlessly, but at length inquired the

way to General Newbold's. At the door, without giving his name, he asked

to see Mademoiselle V--, and was shown into a little back parlour, where

she came to him with a gaze of surprise.

'"My God! Why do you intrude here, Monsieur?" she gasped in French as

soon as she saw his face.

'"You were taken ill yesterday. I helped you. You might have been run

over if I had not picked you up. It was an act of simple humanity

certainly; but I thought I might come to ask if you had recovered?"

'She had turned aside, and had scarcely heard a word of his speech. "I

hate you, infamous man!" she said. "I cannot bear your helping me. Go

away!"

'"But you are a stranger to me."

'"I know you too well!"

'"You have the advantage then, Mademoiselle. I am a newcomer here. I

never have seen you before to my knowledge; and I certainly do not, could

not, hate you."

'"Are you not Monsieur B--?"

'He flinched. "I am--in Paris," he said. "But here I am Monsieur G--."

'"That is trivial. You are the man I say you are."

'"How did you know my real name, Mademoiselle?"

'"I saw you in years gone by, when you did not see me. You were formerly

Member of the Committee of Public Safety, under the Convention."

"I was."

'"You guillotined my father, my brother, my uncle--all my family, nearly,

and broke my mother's heart. They had done nothing but keep silence.

Their sentiments were only guessed. Their headless corpses were thrown

indiscriminately into the ditch of the Mousseaux Cemetery, and destroyed

with lime."

'He nodded.

'"You left me without a friend, and here I am now, alone in a foreign

land."

'"I am sorry for you," said be. "Sorry for the consequence, not for the

intent. What I did was a matter of conscience, and, from a point of view

indiscernible by you, I did right. I profited not a farthing. But I

shall not argue this. You have the satisfaction of seeing me here an

exile also, in poverty, betrayed by comrades, as friendless as yourself."

'"It is no satisfaction to me, Monsieur."

'"Well, things done cannot be altered. Now the question: are you quite

recovered?"

'"Not from dislike and dread of you--otherwise, yes."

'"Good morning, Mademoiselle."

'"Good morning."

'They did not meet again till one evening at the theatre (which my

mother's friend was with great difficulty induced to frequent, to perfect

herself in English pronunciation, the idea she entertained at that time

being to become a teacher of English in her own country later on). She

found him sitting next to her, and it made her pale and restless.

'"You are still afraid of me?"

'"I am. O cannot you understand!"

'He signified the affirmative.

'"I follow the play with difficulty," he said, presently.

'"So do I--now," said she.

'He regarded her long, and she was conscious of his look; and while she

kept her eyes on the stage they filled with tears. Still she would not

move, and the tears ran visibly down her cheek, though the play was a

merry one, being no other than Mr. Sheridan's comedy of "The Rivals,"

with Mr. S. Kemble as Captain Absolute. He saw her distress, and that

her mind was elsewhere; and abruptly rising from his seat at

candle-snuffing time he left the theatre.

'Though he lived in the old town, and she in the new, they frequently saw

each other at a distance. One of these occasions was when she was on the

north side of the harbour, by the ferry, waiting for the boat to take her

across. He was standing by Cove Row, on the quay opposite. Instead of

entering the boat when it arrived she stepped back from the quay; but

looking to see if he remained she beheld him pointing with his finger to

the ferry-boat.

'"Enter!" he said, in a voice loud enough to reach her.

'Mademoiselle V--- stood still.

'"Enter!" he said, and, as she did not move, he repeated the word a third

time.

'She had really been going to cross, and now approached and stepped down

into the boat. Though she did not raise her eyes she knew that he was

watching her over. At the landing steps she saw from under the brim of

her hat a hand stretched down. The steps were steep and slippery.

'"No, Monsieur," she said. "Unless, indeed, you believe in God, and

repent of your evil past!"

'"I am sorry you were made to suffer. But I only believe in the god

called Reason, and I do not repent. I was the instrument of a national

principle. Your friends were not sacrificed for any ends of mine."

'She thereupon withheld her hand, and clambered up unassisted. He went

on, ascending the Look-out Hill, and disappearing over the brow. Her way

was in the same direction, her errand being to bring home the two young

girls under her charge, who had gone to the cliff for an airing. When

she joined them at the top she saw his solitary figure at the further

edge, standing motionless against the sea. All the while that she

remained with her pupils he stood without turning, as if looking at the

frigates in the roadstead, but more probably in meditation, unconscious

where he was. In leaving the spot one of the children threw away half a

sponge-biscuit that she had been eating. Passing near it he stooped,

picked it up carefully, and put it in his pocket.

'Mademoiselle V--- came homeward, asking herself, "Can he be starving?"

'From that day he was invisible for so long a time that she thought he

had gone away altogether. But one evening a note came to her, and she

opened it trembling.

'"I am here ill," it said, "and, as you know, alone. There are one or

two little things I want done, in case my death should occur,--and I

should prefer not to ask the people here, if it could be avoided. Have

you enough of the gift of charity to come and carry out my wishes

before it is too late?"

'Now so it was that, since seeing him possess himself of the broken cake,

she had insensibly begun to feel something that was more than curiosity,

though perhaps less than anxiety, about this fellow-countryman of hers;

and it was not in her nervous and sensitive heart to resist his appeal.

She found his lodging (to which he had removed from the Old Rooms inn for

economy) to be a room over a shop, half-way up the steep and narrow

street of the old town, to which the fashionable visitors seldom

penetrated. With some misgiving she entered the house, and was admitted

to the chamber where he lay.

'"You are too good, too good," he murmured. And presently, "You need not

shut the door. You will feel safer, and they will not understand what we

say."

'"Are you in want, Monsieur? Can I give you--"

'"No, no. I merely want you to do a trifling thing or two that I have

not strength enough to do myself. Nobody in the town but you knows who I

really am--unless you have told?"

'"I have not told . . . I thought you might have acted from principle in

those sad days, even--"

'"You are kind to concede that much. However, to the present. I was

able to destroy my few papers before I became so weak . . . But in the

drawer there you will find some pieces of linen clothing--only two or

three--marked with initials that may be recognized. Will you rip them

out with a penknife?"

'She searched as bidden, found the garments, cut out the stitches of the

lettering, and replaced the linen as before. A promise to post, in the

event of his death, a letter he put in her hand, completed all that he

required of her.

'He thanked her. "I think you seem sorry for me," he murmured. "And I

am surprised. You are sorry?"

'She evaded the question. "Do you repent and believe?" she asked.

'"No."

'Contrary to her expectations and his own he recovered, though very

slowly; and her manner grew more distant thenceforward, though his

influence upon her was deeper than she knew. Weeks passed away, and the

month of May arrived. One day at this time she met him walking slowly

along the beach to the northward.

'"You know the news?" he said.

'"You mean of the rupture between France and England again?"

'"Yes; and the feeling of antagonism is stronger than it was in the last

war, owing to Bonaparte's high-handed arrest of the innocent English who

were travelling in our country for pleasure. I feel that the war will be

long and bitter; and that my wish to live unknown in England will be

frustrated. See here."

'He took from his pocket a piece of the single newspaper which circulated

in the county in those days, and she read--

"The magistrates acting under the Alien Act have been requested to

direct a very scrutinizing eye to the Academies in our towns and other

places, in which French tutors are employed, and to all of that

nationality who profess to be teachers in this country. Many of them

are known to be inveterate Enemies and Traitors to the nation among

whose people they have found a livelihood and a home."

'He continued: "I have observed since the declaration of war a marked

difference in the conduct of the rougher class of people here towards me.

If a great battle were to occur--as it soon will, no doubt--feeling would

grow to a pitch that would make it impossible for me, a disguised man of

no known occupation, to stay here. With you, whose duties and

antecedents are known, it may be less difficult, but still unpleasant.

Now I propose this. You have probably seen how my deep sympathy with you

has quickened to a warm feeling; and what I say is, will you agree to

give me a title to protect you by honouring me with your hand? I am

older than you, it is true, but as husband and wife we can leave England

together, and make the whole world our country. Though I would propose

Quebec, in Canada, as the place which offers the best promise of a home."

'"My God! You surprise me!" said she.

'"But you accept my proposal?"

'"No, no!"

'"And yet I think you will, Mademoiselle, some day!"

'"I think not."

'"I won't distress you further now."

'"Much thanks . . . I am glad to see you looking better, Monsieur; I mean

you are looking better."

'"Ah, yes. I am improving. I walk in the sun every day."

'And almost every day she saw him--sometimes nodding stiffly only,

sometimes exchanging formal civilities. "You are not gone yet," she said

on one of these occasions.

'"No. At present I don't think of going without you."

'"But you find it uncomfortable here?"

'"Somewhat. So when will you have pity on me?"

'She shook her head and went on her way. Yet she was a little moved. "He

did it on principle," she would murmur. "He had no animosity towards

them, and profited nothing!"

'She wondered how he lived. It was evident that he could not be so poor

as she had thought; his pretended poverty might be to escape notice. She

could not tell, but she knew that she was dangerously interested in him.

'And he still mended, till his thin, pale face became more full and firm.

As he mended she had to meet that request of his, advanced with even

stronger insistency.

'The arrival of the King and Court for the season as usual brought

matters to a climax for these two lonely exiles and fellow

country-people. The King's awkward preference for a part of the coast in

such dangerous proximity to France made it necessary that a strict

military vigilance should be exercised to guard the royal residents. Half-

a-dozen frigates were every night posted in a line across the bay, and

two lines of sentinels, one at the water's edge and another behind the

Esplanade, occupied the whole sea-front after eight every night. The

watering-place was growing an inconvenient residence even for

Mademoiselle V--- herself, her friendship for this strange French tutor

and writing-master who never had any pupils having been observed by many

who slightly knew her. The General's wife, whose dependent she was,

repeatedly warned her against the acquaintance; while the Hanoverian and

other soldiers of the Foreign Legion, who had discovered the nationality

of her friend, were more aggressive than the English military gallants

who made it their business to notice her.

'In this tense state of affairs her answers became more agitated. "O

Heaven, how can I marry you!" she would say.

'"You will; surely you will!" he answered again. "I don't leave without

you. And I shall soon be interrogated before the magistrates if I stay

here; probably imprisoned. You will come?"

'She felt her defences breaking down. Contrary to all reason and sense

of family honour she was, by some abnormal craving, inclining to a

tenderness for him that was founded on its opposite. Sometimes her warm

sentiments burnt lower than at others, and then the enormity of her

conduct showed itself in more staring hues.

'Shortly after this he came with a resigned look on his face. "It is as

I expected," he said. "I have received a hint to go. In good sooth, I

am no Bonapartist--I am no enemy to England; but the presence of the King

made it impossible for a foreigner with no visible occupation, and who

may be a spy, to remain at large in the town. The authorities are civil,

but firm. They are no more than reasonable. Good. I must go. You must

come also."

'She did not speak. But she nodded assent, her eyes drooping.

'On her way back to the house on the Esplanade she said to herself, "I am

glad, I am glad! I could not do otherwise. It is rendering good for

evil!" But she knew how she mocked herself in this, and that the moral

principle had not operated one jot in her acceptance of him. In truth

she had not realized till now the full presence of the emotion which had

unconsciously grown up in her for this lonely and severe man, who, in her

tradition, was vengeance and irreligion personified. He seemed to absorb

her whole nature, and, absorbing, to control it.

'A day or two before the one fixed for the wedding there chanced to come

to her a letter from the only acquaintance of her own sex and country she

possessed in England, one to whom she had sent intelligence of her

approaching marriage, without mentioning with whom. This friend's

misfortunes had been somewhat similar to her own, which fact had been one

cause of their intimacy; her friend's sister, a nun of the Abbey of

Montmartre, having perished on the scaffold at the hands of the same

Comite de Salut Public which had numbered Mademoiselle V--'s affianced

among its members. The writer had felt her position much again of late,

since the renewal of the war, she said; and the letter wound up with a

fresh denunciation of the authors of their mutual bereavement and

subsequent troubles.

'Coming just then, its contents produced upon Mademoiselle V--- the

effect of a pail of water upon a somnambulist. What had she been doing

in betrothing herself to this man! Was she not making herself a

parricide after the event? At this crisis in her feelings her lover

called. He beheld her trembling, and, in reply to his question, she told

him of her scruples with impulsive candour.

'She had not intended to do this, but his attitude of tender command

coerced her into frankness. Thereupon he exhibited an agitation never

before apparent in him. He said, "But all that is past. You are the

symbol of Charity, and we are pledged to let bygones be."

'His words soothed her for the moment, but she was sadly silent, and he

went away.

'That night she saw (as she firmly believed to the end of her life) a

divinely sent vision. A procession of her lost relatives--father,

brother, uncle, cousin--seemed to cross her chamber between her bed and

the window, and when she endeavoured to trace their features she

perceived them to be headless, and that she had recognized them by their

familiar clothes only. In the morning she could not shake off the

effects of this appearance on her nerves. All that day she saw nothing

of her wooer, he being occupied in making arrangements for their

departure. It grew towards evening--the marriage eve; but, in spite of

his re-assuring visit, her sense of family duty waxed stronger now that

she was left alone. Yet, she asked herself, how could she, alone and

unprotected, go at this eleventh hour and reassert to an affianced

husband that she could not and would not marry him while admitting at the

same time that she loved him? The situation dismayed her. She had

relinquished her post as governess, and was staying temporarily in a room

near the coach-office, where she expected him to call in the morning to

carry out the business of their union and departure.

'Wisely or foolishly, Mademoiselle V--- came to a resolution: that her

only safety lay in flight. His contiguity influenced her too sensibly;

she could not reason. So packing up her few possessions and placing on

the table the small sum she owed, she went out privately, secured a last

available seat in the London coach, and, almost before she had fully

weighed her action, she was rolling out of the town in the dusk of the

September evening.

'Having taken this startling step she began to reflect upon her reasons.

He had been one of that tragic Committee the sound of whose name was a

horror to the civilized world; yet he had been only one of several

members, and, it seemed, not the most active. He had marked down names

on principle, had felt no personal enmity against his victims, and had

enriched himself not a sou out of the office he had held. Nothing could

change the past. Meanwhile he loved her, and her heart inclined to as

much of him as she could detach from that past. Why not, as he had

suggested, bury memories, and inaugurate a new era by this union? In

other words, why not indulge her tenderness, since its nullification

could do no good.

'Thus she held self-communion in her seat in the coach, passing through

Casterbridge, and Shottsford, and on to the White Hart at Melchester, at

which place the whole fabric of her recent intentions crumbled down.

Better be staunch having got so far; let things take their course, and

marry boldly the man who had so impressed her. How great he was; how

small was she! And she had presumed to judge him! Abandoning her place

in the coach with the precipitancy that had characterized her taking it,

she waited till the vehicle had driven off, something in the departing

shapes of the outside passengers against the starlit sky giving her a

start, as she afterwards remembered. Presently the down coach, "The

Morning Herald," entered the city, and she hastily obtained a place on

the top.

'"I'll be firm--I'll be his--if it cost me my immortal soul!" she said.

And with troubled breathings she journeyed back over the road she had

just traced.

'She reached our royal watering-place by the time the day broke, and her

first aim was to get back to the hired room in which her last few days

had been spent. When the landlady appeared at the door in response to

Mademoiselle V--'s nervous summons, she explained her sudden departure

and return as best she could; and no objection being offered to her re-

engagement of the room for one day longer she ascended to the chamber and

sat down panting. She was back once more, and her wild tergiversations

were a secret from him whom alone they concerned.

'A sealed letter was on the mantelpiece. "Yes, it is directed to you,

Mademoiselle," said the woman who had followed her. "But we were

wondering what to do with it. A town messenger brought it after you had

gone last night."

'When the landlady had left, Mademoiselle V--- opened the letter and

read--

"MY DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND.--You have been throughout our

acquaintance absolutely candid concerning your misgivings. But I have

been reserved concerning mine. That is the difference between us. You

probably have not guessed that every qualm you have felt on the

subject of our marriage has been paralleled in my heart to the full.

Thus it happened that your involuntary outburst of remorse yesterday,

though mechanically deprecated by me in your presence, was a last item

in my own doubts on the wisdom of our union, giving them a force that

I could no longer withstand. I came home; and, on reflection, much as

I honour and adore you, I decide to set you free.

"As one whose life has been devoted, and I may say sacrificed, to the

cause of Liberty, I cannot allow your judgment (probably a permanent

one) to be fettered beyond release by a feeling which may be transient

only.

"It would be no less than excruciating to both that I should announce

this decision to you by word of mouth. I have therefore taken the

less painful course of writing. Before you receive this I shall have

left the town by the evening coach for London, on reaching which city

my movements will be revealed to none.

"Regard me, Mademoiselle, as dead, and accept my renewed assurances of

respect, remembrance, and affection."

'When she had recovered from her shock of surprise and grief, she

remembered that at the starting of the coach out of Melchester before

dawn, the shape of a figure among the outside passengers against the

starlit sky had caused her a momentary start, from its resemblance to

that of her friend. Knowing nothing of each other's intentions, and

screened from each other by the darkness, they had left the town by the

same conveyance. "He, the greater, persevered; I, the smaller,

returned!" she said.

'Recovering from her stupor, Mademoiselle V--- bethought herself again of

her employer, Mrs. Newbold, whom recent events had estranged. To that

lady she went with a full heart, and explained everything. Mrs. Newbold

kept to herself her opinion of the episode, and reinstalled the deserted

bride in her old position as governess to the family.

'A governess she remained to the end of her days. After the final peace

with France she became acquainted with my mother, to whom by degrees she

imparted these experiences of hers. As her hair grew white, and her

features pinched, Mademoiselle V--- would wonder what nook of the world

contained her lover, if he lived, and if by any chance she might see him

again. But when, some time in the 'twenties, death came to her, at no

great age, that outline against the stars of the morning remained as the

last glimpse she ever obtained of her family's foe and her once affianced

husband.'

1895.

MASTER JOHN HORSELEIGH, KNIGHT

In the earliest and mustiest volume of the Havenpool marriage registers

(said the thin-faced gentleman) this entry may still be read by any one

curious enough to decipher the crabbed handwriting of the date. I took a

copy of it when I was last there; and it runs thus (he had opened his

pocket-book, and now read aloud the extract; afterwards handing round the

book to us, wherein we saw transcribed the following)--

Mastr John Horseleigh, Knyght, of the p'ysshe of Clyffton was maryd to

Edith the wyffe late off John Stocker, m'chawnte of Havenpool the

xiiij daje of December be p'vylegge gevyn by our sup'me hedd of the

chyrche of Ingelonde Kynge Henry the viii th 1539.

Now, if you turn to the long and elaborate pedigree of the ancient family

of the Horseleighs of Clyfton Horseleigh, you will find no mention

whatever of this alliance, notwithstanding the privilege given by the

Sovereign and head of the Church; the said Sir John being therein

chronicled as marrying, at a date apparently earlier than the above, the

daughter and heiress of Richard Phelipson, of Montislope, in Nether

Wessex, a lady who outlived him, of which marriage there were issue two

daughters and a son, who succeeded him in his estates. How are we to

account for these, as it would seem, contemporaneous wives? A strange

local tradition only can help us, and this can be briefly told.

One evening in the autumn of the year 1540 or 1541, a young sailor, whose

Christian name was Roger, but whose surname is not known, landed at his

native place of Havenpool, on the South Wessex coast, after a voyage in

the Newfoundland trade, then newly sprung into existence. He returned in

the ship Primrose with a cargo of 'trayne oyle brought home from the New

Founde Lande,' to quote from the town records of the date. During his

absence of two summers and a winter, which made up the term of a

Newfoundland 'spell,' many unlooked-for changes had occurred within the

quiet little seaport, some of which closely affected Roger the sailor. At

the time of his departure his only sister Edith had become the bride of

one Stocker, a respectable townsman, and part owner of the brig in which

Roger had sailed; and it was to the house of this couple, his only

relatives, that the young man directed his steps. On trying the door in

Quay Street he found it locked, and then observed that the windows were

boarded up. Inquiring of a bystander, he learnt for the first time of

the death of his brother-in-law, though that event had taken place nearly

eighteen months before.

'And my sister Edith?' asked Roger.

'She's married again--as they do say, and hath been so these twelve

months. I don't vouch for the truth o't, though if she isn't she ought

to be.'

Roger's face grew dark. He was a man with a considerable reserve of

strong passion, and he asked his informant what he meant by speaking

thus.

The man explained that shortly after the young woman's bereavement a

stranger had come to the port. He had seen her moping on the quay, had

been attracted by her youth and loneliness, and in an extraordinarily

brief wooing had completely fascinated her--had carried her off, and, as

was reported, had married her. Though he had come by water, he was

supposed to live no very great distance off by land. They were last

heard of at Oozewood, in Upper Wessex, at the house of one Wall, a timber-

merchant, where, he believed, she still had a lodging, though her

husband, if he were lawfully that much, was but an occasional visitor to

the place.

'The stranger?' asked Roger. 'Did you see him? What manner of man was

he?'

'I liked him not,' said the other. 'He seemed of that kind that hath

something to conceal, and as he walked with her he ever and anon turned

his head and gazed behind him, as if he much feared an unwelcome pursuer.

But, faith,' continued he, 'it may have been the man's anxiety only. Yet

did I not like him.'

'Was he older than my sister?' Roger asked.

'Ay--much older; from a dozen to a score of years older. A man of some

position, maybe, playing an amorous game for the pleasure of the hour.

Who knoweth but that he have a wife already? Many have done the thing

hereabouts of late.'

Having paid a visit to the graves of his relatives, the sailor next day

went along the straight road which, then a lane, now a highway, conducted

to the curious little inland town named by the Havenpool man. It is

unnecessary to describe Oozewood on the South-Avon. It has a railway at

the present day; but thirty years of steam traffic past its precincts

have hardly modified its original features. Surrounded by a sort of

fresh-water lagoon, dividing it from meadows and coppice, its ancient

thatch and timber houses have barely made way even in the front street

for the ubiquitous modern brick and slate. It neither increases nor

diminishes in size; it is difficult to say what the inhabitants find to

do, for, though trades in woodware are still carried on, there cannot be

enough of this class of work nowadays to maintain all the householders,

the forests around having been so greatly thinned and curtailed. At the

time of this tradition the forests were dense, artificers in wood

abounded, and the timber trade was brisk. Every house in the town,

without exception, was of oak framework, filled in with plaster, and

covered with thatch, the chimney being the only brick portion of the

structure. Inquiry soon brought Roger the sailor to the door of Wall,

the timber-dealer referred to, but it was some time before he was able to

gain admission to the lodging of his sister, the people having plainly

received directions not to welcome strangers.

She was sitting in an upper room on one of the lath-backed,

willow-bottomed 'shepherd's' chairs, made on the spot then as to this

day, and as they were probably made there in the days of the Heptarchy.

In her lap was an infant, which she had been suckling, though now it had

fallen asleep; so had the young mother herself for a few minutes, under

the drowsing effects of solitude. Hearing footsteps on the stairs, she

awoke, started up with a glad cry, and ran to the door, opening which she

met her brother on the threshold.

'O, this is merry; I didn't expect 'ee!' she said. 'Ah, Roger--I thought

it was John.' Her tones fell to disappointment.

The sailor kissed her, looked at her sternly for a few moments, and

pointing to the infant, said, 'You mean the father of this?'

'Yes, my husband,' said Edith.

'I hope so,' he answered.

'Why, Roger, I'm married--of a truth am I!' she cried.

'Shame upon 'ee, if true! If not true, worse. Master Stocker was an

honest man, and ye should have respected his memory longer. Where is thy

husband?'

'He comes often. I thought it was he now. Our marriage has to be kept

secret for a while--it was done privily for certain reasons; but we was

married at church like honest folk--afore God we were, Roger, six months

after poor Stocker's death.'

''Twas too soon,' said Roger.

'I was living in a house alone; I had nowhere to go to. You were far

over sea in the New Found Land, and John took me and brought me here.'

'How often doth he come?' says Roger again.

'Once or twice weekly,' says she.

'I wish th' 'dst waited till I returned, dear Edy,' he said. 'It mid be

you are a wife--I hope so. But, if so, why this mystery? Why this mean

and cramped lodging in this lonely copse-circled town? Of what standing

is your husband, and of where?'

'He is of gentle breeding--his name is John. I am not free to tell his

family-name. He is said to be of London, for safety' sake; but he really

lives in the county next adjoining this.'

'Where in the next county?'

'I do not know. He has preferred not to tell me, that I may not have the

secret forced from me, to his and my hurt, by bringing the marriage to

the ears of his kinsfolk and friends.'

Her brother's face flushed. 'Our people have been honest townsmen, well-

reputed for long; why should you readily take such humbling from a

sojourner of whom th' 'st know nothing?'

They remained in constrained converse till her quick ear caught a sound,

for which she might have been waiting--a horse's footfall. 'It is John!'

said she. 'This is his night--Saturday.'

'Don't be frightened lest he should find me here!' said Roger. 'I am on

the point of leaving. I wish not to be a third party. Say nothing at

all about my visit, if it will incommode you so to do. I will see thee

before I go afloat again.'

Speaking thus he left the room, and descending the staircase let himself

out by the front door, thinking he might obtain a glimpse of the

approaching horseman. But that traveller had in the meantime gone

stealthily round to the back of the homestead, and peering along the

pinion-end of the house Roger discerned him unbridling and haltering his

horse with his own hands in the shed there.

Roger retired to the neighbouring inn called the Black Lamb, and

meditated. This mysterious method of approach determined him, after all,

not to leave the place till he had ascertained more definite facts of his

sister's position--whether she were the deluded victim of the stranger or

the wife she obviously believed herself to be. Having eaten some supper,

he left the inn, it being now about eleven o'clock. He first looked into

the shed, and, finding the horse still standing there, waited

irresolutely near the door of his sister's lodging. Half an hour

elapsed, and, while thinking he would climb into a loft hard by for a

night's rest, there seemed to be a movement within the shutters of the

sitting-room that his sister occupied. Roger hid himself behind a faggot-

stack near the back door, rightly divining that his sister's visitor

would emerge by the way he had entered. The door opened, and the candle

she held in her hand lighted for a moment the stranger's form, showing it

to be that of a tall and handsome personage, about forty years of age,

and apparently of a superior position in life. Edith was assisting him

to cloak himself, which being done he took leave of her with a kiss and

left the house. From the door she watched him bridle and saddle his

horse, and having mounted and waved an adieu to her as she stood candle

in hand, he turned out of the yard and rode away.

The horse which bore him was, or seemed to be, a little lame, and Roger

fancied from this that the rider's journey was not likely to be a long

one. Being light of foot he followed apace, having no great difficulty

on such a still night in keeping within earshot some few miles, the

horseman pausing more than once. In this pursuit Roger discovered the

rider to choose bridle-tracks and open commons in preference to any high

road. The distance soon began to prove a more trying one than he had

bargained for; and when out of breath and in some despair of being able

to ascertain the man's identity, he perceived an ass standing in the

starlight under a hayrick, from which the animal was helping itself to

periodic mouthfuls.

The story goes that Roger caught the ass, mounted, and again resumed the

trail of the unconscious horseman, which feat may have been possible to a

nautical young fellow, though one can hardly understand how a sailor

would ride such an animal without bridle or saddle, and strange to his

hands, unless the creature were extraordinarily docile. This question,

however, is immaterial. Suffice it to say that at dawn the following

morning Roger beheld his sister's lover or husband entering the gates of

a large and well-timbered park on the south-western verge of the White

Hart Forest (as it was then called), now known to everybody as the Vale

of Blackmoor. Thereupon the sailor discarded his steed, and finding for

himself an obscurer entrance to the same park a little further on, he

crossed the grass to reconnoitre.

He presently perceived amid the trees before him a mansion which, new to

himself, was one of the best known in the county at that time. Of this

fine manorial residence hardly a trace now remains; but a manuscript

dated some years later than the events we are regarding describes it in

terms from which the imagination may construct a singularly clear and

vivid picture. This record presents it as consisting of 'a faire yellow

freestone building, partly two and partly three storeys; a faire halle

and parlour, both waynscotted; a faire dyning roome and withdrawing

roome, and many good lodgings; a kitchen adjoyninge backwarde to one end

of the dwelling-house, with a faire passage from it into the halle,

parlour, and dyninge roome, and sellars adjoyninge.

'In the front of the house a square greene court, and a curious gatehouse

with lodgings in it, standing with the front of the house to the south;

in a large outer court three stables, a coach-house, a large barne, and a

stable for oxen and kyne, and all houses necessary.

'Without the gatehouse, paled in, a large square greene, in which

standeth a faire chappell; of the south-east side of the greene court,

towards the river, a large garden.

'Of the south-west side of the greene court is a large bowling greene,

with fower mounted walks about it, all walled about with a batteled wall,

and sett with all sorts of fruit; and out of it into the feildes there

are large walks under many tall elmes orderly planted.'

Then follows a description of the orchards and gardens; the servants'

offices, brewhouse, bakehouse, dairy, pigeon-houses, and corn-mill; the

river and its abundance of fish; the warren, the coppices, the walks;

ending thus--

'And all the country north of the house, open champaign, sandy feildes,

very dry and pleasant for all kindes of recreation, huntinge, and

hawkinge, and profitble for tillage . . . The house hath a large prospect

east, south, and west, over a very large and pleasant vale . . . is

seated from the good markett towns of Sherton Abbas three miles, and Ivel

a mile, that plentifully yield all manner of provision; and within twelve

miles of the south sea.'

It was on the grass before this seductive and picturesque structure that

the sailor stood at gaze under the elms in the dim dawn of Sunday

morning, and saw to his surprise his sister's lover and horse vanish

within the court of the building.

Perplexed and weary, Roger slowly retreated, more than ever convinced

that something was wrong in his sister's position. He crossed the

bowling green to the avenue of elms, and, bent on further research, was

about to climb into one of these, when, looking below, he saw a heap of

hay apparently for horses or deer. Into this he crept, and, having eaten

a crust of bread which he had hastily thrust into his pocket at the inn,

he curled up and fell asleep, the hay forming a comfortable bed, and

quite covering him over.

He slept soundly and long, and was awakened by the sound of a bell. On

peering from the hay he found the time had advanced to full day; the sun

was shining brightly. The bell was that of the 'faire chappell' on the

green outside the gatehouse, and it was calling to matins. Presently the

priest crossed the green to a little side-door in the chancel, and then

from the gateway of the mansion emerged the household, the tall man whom

Roger had seen with his sister on the previous night, on his arm being a

portly dame, and, running beside the pair, two little girls and a boy.

These all entered the chapel, and the bell having ceased and the environs

become clear, the sailor crept out from his hiding.

He sauntered towards the chapel, the opening words of the service being

audible within. While standing by the porch he saw a belated servitor

approaching from the kitchen-court to attend the service also. Roger

carelessly accosted him, and asked, as an idle wanderer, the name of the

family he had just seen cross over from the mansion.

'Od zounds! if ye modden be a stranger here in very truth, goodman. That

wer Sir John and his dame, and his children Elizabeth, Mary, and John.'

'I be from foreign parts. Sir John what d'ye call'n?'

'Master John Horseleigh, Knight, who had a'most as much lond by

inheritance of his mother as 'a had by his father, and likewise some by

his wife. Why, bain't his arms dree goolden horses' heads, and idden his

lady the daughter of Master Richard Phelipson, of Montislope, in Nether

Wessex, known to us all?'

'It mid be so, and yet it mid not. However, th' 'lt miss thy prayers for

such an honest knight's welfare, and I have to traipse seaward many

miles.'

He went onward, and as he walked continued saying to himself, 'Now to

that poor wronged fool Edy. The fond thing! I thought it; 'twas too

quick--she was ever amorous. What's to become of her! God wot! How be

I going to face her with the news, and how be I to hold it from her? To

bring this disgrace on my father's honoured name, a double-tongued

knave!' He turned and shook his fist at the chapel and all in it, and

resumed his way.

Perhaps it was owing to the perplexity of his mind that, instead of

returning by the direct road towards his sister's obscure lodging in the

next county, he followed the highway to Casterbridge, some fifteen miles

off, where he remained drinking hard all that afternoon and evening, and

where he lay that and two or three succeeding nights, wandering thence

along the Anglebury road to some village that way, and lying the Friday

night after at his native place of Havenpool. The sight of the familiar

objects there seems to have stirred him anew to action, and the next

morning he was observed pursuing the way to Oozewood that he had followed

on the Saturday previous, reckoning, no doubt, that Saturday night would,

as before, be a time for finding Sir John with his sister again.

He delayed to reach the place till just before sunset. His sister was

walking in the meadows at the foot of the garden, with a nursemaid who

carried the baby, and she looked up pensively when he approached. Anxiety

as to her position had already told upon her once rosy cheeks and lucid

eyes. But concern for herself and child was displaced for the moment by

her regard of Roger's worn and haggard face.

'Why--you are sick, Roger--you are tired! Where have you been these many

days? Why not keep me company a bit--my husband is much away? And we

have hardly spoke at all of dear father and of your voyage to the New

Land. Why did you go away so suddenly? There is a spare chamber at my

lodging.'

'Come indoors,' he said. 'We'll talk now--talk a good deal. As for him

[nodding to the child], better heave him into the river; better for him

and you!'

She forced a laugh, as if she tried to see a good joke in the remark, and

they went silently indoors.

'A miserable hole!' said Roger, looking round the room.

'Nay, but 'tis very pretty!'

'Not after what I've seen. Did he marry 'ee at church in orderly

fashion?'

'He did sure--at our church at Havenpool.'

'But in a privy way?'

'Ay--because of his friends--it was at night-time.'

'Ede, ye fond one--for all that he's not thy husband! Th' 'rt not his

wife; and the child is a bastard. He hath a wife and children of his own

rank, and bearing his name; and that's Sir John Horseleigh, of Clyfton

Horseleigh, and not plain Jack, as you think him, and your lawful

husband. The sacrament of marriage is no safeguard nowadays. The King's

new-made headship of the Church hath led men to practise these tricks

lightly.'

She had turned white. 'That's not true, Roger!' she said. 'You are in

liquor, my brother, and you know not what you say! Your seafaring years

have taught 'ee bad things!'

'Edith--I've seen them; wife and family--all. How canst--'

They were sitting in the gathered darkness, and at that moment steps were

heard without. 'Go out this way,' she said. 'It is my husband. He must

not see thee in this mood. Get away till to-morrow, Roger, as you care

for me.'

She pushed her brother through a door leading to the back stairs, and

almost as soon as it was closed her visitor entered. Roger, however, did

not retreat down the stairs; he stood and looked through the bobbin-hole.

If the visitor turned out to be Sir John, he had determined to confront

him.

It was the knight. She had struck a light on his entry, and he kissed

the child, and took Edith tenderly by the shoulders, looking into her

face.

'Something's gone awry wi' my dear!' he said. 'What is it? What's the

matter?'

'O, Jack!' she cried. 'I have heard such a fearsome rumour--what doth it

mean? He who told me is my best friend. He must be deceived! But who

deceived him, and why? Jack, I was just told that you had a wife living

when you married me, and have her still!'

'A wife?--H'm.'

'Yes, and children. Say no, say no!'

'By God! I have no lawful wife but you; and as for children, many or

few, they are all bastards, save this one alone!'